Moonglass by Jessi Kirby

From Goodreads:

Anna's life is upended when her father accepts a job transfer the summer before her junior year. It's bad enough that she has to leave her friends and her life behind, but her dad is moving them to the beach where her parents first met and fell in love- a place awash in memories that Anna would just as soon leave under the surface.

While life on the beach is pretty great, with ocean views and one adorable lifeguard in particular, there are also family secrets that were buried along the shore years ago. And the ebb and flow of the ocean's tide means that nothing- not the sea glass that she collects on the sand and not the truths behind Anna's mother's death- stays buried forever.

What I loved about this book were the characters. When you first meet characters like Ashley and Jillian, you assume that they're going to be typical catty girls who find a way to hate the main character and spend their whole presence in the novel just being all-around hateful. I love it when assumptions get squashed. It means the author is thinking and keeping us on our toes and not just writing the typical cliched story arcs.

I loved all the characters in this book and while the story itself isn't all that distinctive, I am one who clings to characters more than stories anyway. So even though I probably won't remember what happened in this story, I will definitely remember the characters.

Cover Comments: Looking at this cover on a computer screen does not do it justice. The book jacket itself has a gorgeous shimmer to it which makes this cover much more stunning in person. Every time I went to pick the book up, I'd just run my hands across it because it's just so pretty. I can only imagine how giddy Jessi Kirby must have been when she first saw the finished product.

Moonglass by Jessi Kirby
Published: May 2011 by Simon & Schuster
Pages: 232
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: Young Adult